Deacon Paul Nghia Pham

WHAT WE CHOOSE TO SEE

“Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious—if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.” — Philippians 4:8

The professor entered the classroom without ceremony. He carried a stack of papers under his arm and wore the same calm expression his students had grown used to seeing. Still, something about the way he moved that day made them uneasy.

“Prepare for a surprise test,” he said.

A ripple of tension passed through the room. Chairs shifted. Pens were readied. A few students exchanged glances that mixed dread with resignation. Tests, after all, had a way of exposing what one did not know.

The professor handed out the papers face down, one to each student, then returned to the front of the room.

“Turn them over,” he said.

The students did.

There were no questions. No instructions. No words at all.

Only a single black dot, perfectly round, printed in the center of a clean white page.

Confusion spread quickly. Brows furrowed. A few students glanced at their neighbors’ papers, hoping to find some clue that theirs had been printed incorrectly. They hadn’t been.

The professor watched their reactions quietly.

“I want you to write about what you see,” he said.

That was all.

Reluctantly, the students began to write.

Some described the size of the dot. Others analyzed its position, its symmetry, its possible meaning. A few speculated about symbolism. Every pen moved. Every page filled.

At the end of class, the professor collected the papers and began reading them aloud, one by one. Each student heard their own words echo through the room. Each essay, without exception, focused entirely on the black dot.

When he finished, the room fell silent.

Then the professor spoke.

“I’m not going to grade you on this,” he said. “I wanted to give you something to think about.”

He paused, letting his gaze sweep across the room.

“No one wrote about the white part of the paper,” he continued. “Everyone focused on the black dot.”

He held up one of the pages.

“The same thing happens in our lives. We have a page full of blessings—health, family, opportunities, memories, moments of grace—but our eyes are drawn almost instinctively to the dark spot. The illness that worries us. The money we don’t have. The relationship that hurts. The disappointment that lingers.”

He let the paper fall back to the desk.

“The dark spots are very small compared to everything we are given. But they are the ones that pollute our minds.”

The students listened differently now. The test had ended, but the lesson had just begun.

Long after the class dismissed, that image stayed with them: a single black dot dominating an otherwise untouched page.

It is a familiar pattern.

Human beings are remarkably resilient when faced with great challenges. We rise in moments of crisis. We marshal strength, faith, and community when something demands our full attention. But when life is mostly good—when the page is largely white—we fixate on the one thing that is not.

A careless comment.
A minor setback.
A lingering fear.
An unresolved wound.

We replay it. We enlarge it. We let it define the entire picture.

The mind is powerful that way. It magnifies what it stares at.

That is why two people can live the same life and describe it completely differently. One sees abundance interrupted by difficulty. The other sees difficulty that cancels abundance. The difference is not circumstance. It is focus.

Scripture has always known this about the human heart. Long before psychology named negativity bias, wisdom urged people to guard their thoughts carefully. Not because problems are imaginary, but because attention gives them power.

The black dot was real. The professor did not deny it. He simply refused to let it become the whole page.

So often, we believe that focusing on what is wrong is a form of responsibility—that vigilance equals wisdom. We worry because we think worry will protect us. We dwell on pain because we think it will prepare us. But more often than not, it simply drains us.

What we repeatedly think about becomes the atmosphere of our soul.

If we fix our gaze on what is lacking, gratitude suffocates.
If we dwell on resentment, compassion thins.
If we rehearse fear, hope struggles to breathe.

The apostle Paul did not write his counsel about noble and lovely things from a place of comfort. He wrote it from prison. Chains did not prevent him from choosing where his attention rested. He understood that while circumstances may not always be under our control, focus almost always is.

This does not mean ignoring pain or pretending everything is fine. Denial is not faith. But neither is obsession.

The black dot may deserve acknowledgment—but not dominion.

There is a subtle difference between awareness and fixation. Awareness sees the dot and then lifts its eyes to the rest of the page. Fixation stares until the page disappears.

Many people walk through life convinced their story is dark because they have memorized every flaw and forgotten every gift. They know exactly what went wrong, but struggle to name what has gone right.

They remember the one criticism more vividly than the ten affirmations.
They replay the single failure louder than years of faithfulness.
They carry yesterday’s disappointment into today’s joy.

Over time, the page narrows. The dot grows.

Yet the white space remains. Always has.

Breath still fills lungs.
Light still enters rooms.
Someone still cares.
Grace still arrives quietly, daily.

The challenge is not creating blessings. It is noticing them.

The professor’s lesson was not about optimism. It was about vision.

Where we choose to look determines what we believe life is made of.

A life focused only on black dots becomes heavy, suspicious, joyless—not because joy is absent, but because it is unseen. A life that notices the white space becomes grounded, resilient, and thankful—not because pain disappears, but because it is put in its proper place.

The invitation is simple, though not easy: train the eyes of the heart.

Name the good.
Give thanks deliberately.
Recall mercies with the same energy used to recall wounds.

This discipline does not come naturally. It must be practiced. But with time, the page begins to look different.

The black dot remains—but it no longer defines the story.

One day, when life is reviewed not in fragments but as a whole, we may be surprised by how much white space there was. How many moments were filled with quiet grace. How many blessings went unnoticed because our eyes were elsewhere.

The professor never gave another test like that one. He didn’t need to. The image was enough.

A single black dot.
A wide white page.

Every day places the same paper before us.

What we choose to see will shape not only how we feel, but who we become.

So look honestly at the dot—but do not stop there. Lift your eyes. Take in the whole page.

Because life, for all its flaws, is far more generous than our fears would have us believe.